Penguins

Long before March of the Penguins and Happy Feet, there was an ugly blue bathroom in a rental apartment. A beautiful shower curtain with a photo of penguins lined up on ice and snow came along and brought the whole bathroom together. Those penguins turned the look of the room around, making powder blue tile reminiscent of sparkling ice crystals.

I have been fond of penguins ever since. About ten years ago, when we were dating, my husband gave me a stuffed penguin. Years later, on the Mother's Day when I was pregnant with Ladybug, he gave me a stuffed mama and baby penguin to go with the original gift. Now I had a penguin family in celebration of our growing family -- adorable, right?  Ladybug found the penguin family today, and she's smitten. We got to talk about mama and papa and baby penguins. I love that this discussion isn't a total retreat from reality, since penguin fathers are involved in caring for chicks.

Tonight before bed, Ladybug picked a penguin book for me to read. We haven't done much storytime snuggling over non-fiction books, but I gave it a go. This is a book with way too much text for a young toddler, so I got to exercise my summarizing skills. We talked a lot about the mama and baby penguins. She was also thrilled with the knowledge that penguins "swim in wa-wa!" There was a drawing of a penguin skeleton, so I explained that many animals have hard bones in their bodies. I told her she has a long bone in her arm and her leg and that penguins have bones too. She said, "Penguin bones!"

How fun that we had a totally unplanned pre-preschool penguin study! Maybe I will schedule an aquarium trip soon.